Thomas Holloway

Thomas Holloway

Thomas Holloway (September 22 1800 - December 26 1883) was a patent medicine vendor and philanthropist from England.

Early life

Holloway was born in Devonport, Devon, in 1800. He was the elder son of Thomas and Mary Holloway (née Chellew), who at the time of their son's birth had a bakery business in Devonport. They later moved to Penzance, Cornwall, where they ran the Turk's Head Inn. In the late 1820s, Holloway went to live in Roubaix, France, for a few years. He returned to England in 1831 and worked in London as a secretary and interpreter for a firm of importers and exporters. In 1836, he set himself up as a foreign and commercial agent in London.

uccess in Business

Holloway had business connections with an Italian, Felix Albinolo, who manufactured and sold a general purpose ointment. This gave Holloway the idea to set up a similar business himself in 1837. He began by using his mother's pots and pans to manufacture his ointment in the family kitchen. Seeing the potential in patent medicines, Holloway soon added pills to his range of products. Holloway's business was extremely successful. A key factor in his enormous success in business was advertising, in which Holloway had great faith. Holloway's first newspaper announcements appeared in 1837, and by 1842 his yearly expenses for publicity had reached over £5,000 (GBP). By the time of his death, he was spending over £50,000 a year on advertising his products. The sales of his products made Holloway a multi-millionaire, and one of the richest men in Britain at the time. Holloway's products were said to be able to cure a whole host of ailments, though scientific evaluation of them after his death showed that none of them contained any ingredients which would be considered to be of significant medicinal value.

Tittenhurst Park

Holloway had become extremely wealthy by the late 1860s and bought a Georgian House at Sunninghill, near Ascot, Berkshire called Tittenhurst Park. Holloway lived there with his wife, Jane, Jane's sister Sarah Anne Driver with her husband George Martin(sic - ironic but not connected with George Martin associated with later resident Beatles fame), and Holloway's sister Matilda, an invalid who died soon after.Cite book | author=Williams, Richard| authorlink= | coauthors= | title="Royal Holloway College, A Pictorial History" (first published October 1983) | date=1983 | publisher=Royal Holloway, University of London | location=Surrey | isbn=0-900145-83-8 | pages=page 6 - includes a picture of the house ca.1930] Jane died in 1875, aged 61; Holloway died there on 26 December 1875, aged 83. They are buried in a family grave at Sunninghill churchyard.

A century later, from 1869-71, the building became the home of Beatle John Lennon with his then new wife Yoko Ono, having been married on 20 March 1969 in GibraltarCite book | author=Harry, Bill| authorlink= | coauthors= | title=The Beatles Encyclopaedia (2000 paperback edition; first published 1992) | date=2000 | publisher=Virgin Publishing, London W6 9HA | location=London | isbn=0 7535 0481 2 | pages=638] . Another Beatle, Ringo Starr, lived there after Lennon till the late 1980s. In 1988, the property was sold to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates] and ruler of Abu Dhabi. Since then major renovation of the manor has been carried out, and the interior no longer resembles the house lived in by Lennon and Starr.

Philanthropy

Holloway is best remembered for the two large institutions which he built in England: Holloway Sanatorium in Virginia Water, Surrey, and Royal Holloway College, a college of the University of London in Englefield Green, Surrey. Both were designed by the architect William Henry Crossland, and were inspired by the Cloth Hall in Ypres, Belgium, and the Château de Chambord in the Loire Valley, France. They were founded by Holloway as " 'Gifts to the Nation' ". Holloway claimed that it was his wife, Jane, who inspired him to found the college, which was a college for the eduction of women-only until 1945. Holloway also paid over £80,000 to acquire 77 Victorian era paintings which he donated to the College at the time of its founding. Most of these pieces of art still belong to the college, and remain on display today in the college's Picture Gallery.

A philanthropic and somewhat eccentric donor (he had an unconcealed prejudice against doctors, lawyers and parsons), Holloway died of congestion of the lungs at Sunninghill in 1883, eighteen months before the opening of the Sanatorium.

Bibliography

*Harrison-Barbet, Anthony. "Thomas Holloway: Victorian Philanthropist". ISBN 0-900145-89-7

References

External links

* [http://www.rhul.ac.uk/College-Profile/briefhistory.html History of Royal Holloway and Bedford New College]
* [http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~villages/Surrey/People/holloway.htm RootsWeb.com's page on Thomas Holloway]
* [http://www.stamp.demon.co.uk/Philately/ProtectiveOverprintsAndUnderprints/UserPages/Holloway244/Holloway244.htm Victorian Postage Stamp Overprint used by Thomas Holloway]
* [http://www.auspostalhistory.com/index.php?cID=19&pID=80 Australian Postal History and Thomas Holloway]


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